Page 53 - Occupational Health & Safety, May 2017

contained breathing apparatus, but they still need to have reliable means of communication. In some cases, having multiple or re- dundant forms of communication is also desirable.
Internal responders may also need to be able to communicate with external first responders. Hosting drills with local firefight- ers, hazmat teams, police, and emergency medical responders will help everyone become more comfortable with one another’s capabilities. It also can give everyone involved a chance to prac- tice both unified command and communication skills. Involving external responders benefits both the facility and local response agencies and can help identify gaps that may need to be filled be- fore an emergency occurs.
Facilities also should have a means to communicate with health care professionals who may be called upon to treat employees or members of the community who become ill or injured as a result of something that happened at the facility. Government agencies such as OSHA or the EPA also may need to be notified in some instances.
Maintaining accurate contact information for outside response agencies can seem like a never-ending task, but an emergency situ- ation is no time to start looking for a phone book. Being able to communicate quickly and reliably helps those external resources en route fast.
Communicating with the Public
In the absence of official information, rumors and false accounts of an incident can quickly overwhelm a situation and make it even worse. A common mistake that facilities make is failing to provide the media, customers, families, and other stakeholders with timely information following an incident.
Appointing and training a Public Information Officer (PIO) can help ensure that there is a dedicated person who has already been vetted by the facility and has the capabilities of presenting official messages on its behalf. In some cases, messages can be planned in advance. An advantage to pre-planning certain messages is that it allows for immediacy and, because the message was prepared in a non-stressful situation, it is more likely to be clear, concise, and reassuring that the situation is actively being handled in an appro- priate manner.
The ability to quickly communicate directions and educate the public will help alleviate fears. It also can help to minimize chaos and prevent false rumors from spreading. Having a trained PIO also helps to channel media inquiries and can help prevent extrane- ous information from being aired. When employees are taught to defer to the PIO for statements and media sources are told when and where the PIO will address the media, timely and consistent messages can be presented to keep the public and stakeholders in- formed. The PIO also can work with each media resource to ensure they have the information that they need to meet their deadlines.
If the incident involves an interruption of goods or services, a PIO can also work with the company’s public relations, customer service, sales, accounting, and other personnel to create consistent messages regarding delays in shipments or other service issues.
Plans also need to include ways to communicate with family members of employees. Sometimes these services are coordinated by the human resources department, but they may need training on
handling non-routine assignments such as determining when and where to establish a meeting place for families to congregate or ar- ranging for counselors, clergy, or therapists.
In the first moments after a disaster, trained personnel can sometimes go immediately into response mode to perform opera- tional functions that they know need to be done. This is one reason why communication often can be overlooked in those initial, criti- cal moments of an emergency or disaster. Establishing communi- cation plans and drilling them just as regularly as operational and other response plans will help them become a more natural part of everyone’s response.
Karen D. Hamel, CSP, WACH, is a regulatory compliance profes-
sional, trainer, and technical writer for New Pig. She has more than
22 years of experience helping EHS professionals find solutions to
meet EPA, OSHA, and DOT regulations and has had more than 100
articles published on a variety of EHS topics. She is a Certified Safety
Professional (CSP,) Walkway Auditor Certificate Holder (WACH,)
Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) trainer, hazmat
technician, serves on the Blair County, PA LEPC, and has completed
a variety of environmental, safety, emergency response, DOT and
NIMS courses, including Planning Section Chief. She has conducted
seminars at national conferences and webinars for ASSE and other
national organizations. She can be reached at 1-800-HOT-HOGS®
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